It Will Never Stay
by Reika Hyouden
Summary: After the willing deaths of Dally and Johnny, Ponyboy comes to a final conclusion-nothing gold can stay.


_A/N—You can say this is like poetry (in a theory that will be explained near the end), only with more words then a regular poem usually has. A lot more words. _

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When I first met Johnny, I didn't think much of him. He was obviously a greaser, like I was, but that didn't really mean anything to me. There were a lot of guys like that around here. He was shy, that much was obvious, but I couldn't help thinking why. Who wouldn't? Then I finally got to know him better and he joined me, Sodapop, and the rest of our group. He finally told me the answer to all his self-consciousness. He was being abused.

From then on we were all the best of friends, much like brothers in a way. Johnny Cade was still his old timid self, but we were all used to it by then. All the Socs mocked him about it, and that earned them a beating from Dally and Two-bit. He always tried to be strong, he really did, but he just found it so hard to keep a straight face around them Socs.

In the beginning, everything was fine. We fought off all the Socs when ignoring them didn't work, and we all became closer as a group. Johnny and I went to the movie theatre occasionally, because Dally and Sodapop refused to come with us. Two-bit was always elsewhere, so there was no asking him about anything. Darry, well Darry I just didn't want to talk to during those times. Even so, Johnny and I had a great time! But that was the beginning, and every beginning comes to an end.

It seemed like everything came crashing down after those days. Darry was becoming more and more distant, and all I had was the gang to lean back on. Then the argument popped up. It wasn't my fault we fell asleep in the lot! And yet he still blamed me. So, Johnny and I ran like rats out of there. And that was the biggest mistake I have ever made.

It was the end. I knew it when those Socs from the movie theatre came. Where was Dally when you needed him? They hurt me, and hurt Johnny as well. We were too overcome with shock to fight back. Maybe if we were younger we would have more energy as we did back then, but everything went downhill from then on. Those memories we all had would be gone if these Socs continued what they were planning to do.

When I woke up, I saw Johnny on the ground, knife in hand. My heart stopped. Bob lay on the ground, dead. I could tell Johnny was feeling disgusted by what he did. When Dally told us to go to the abandoned church, I felt like I was out of my body. Someone took over me and I wasn't thinking. This had to be a dream, wasn't it? A prank? It couldn't be true, but it was. I realized that when Johnny died.

He was burned badly, trying to save those children. There was no stopping him, because he had no reason to live. I cursed his parents, and the way they treated him. Damn them. Maybe if they had just listened to him, instead of kicking him out he could've had the will to live. But that doesn't mean anything now. I looked at them with disgust at the hospital. We all grieved that night, but Dally couldn't handle it. His suicidal plan made me second-guess my life too. But I couldn't leave Darry and Sodapop, could I? We all lived through two deaths that day. Both by their own will. And it made me come to a realization that day.

Nothing gold can stay.

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_A/N-If you couldn't tell, I used Robert Frost's poem 'Nothing Gold Can Stay' as a base. Every paragraph explains one line of the poem. I further explained the meaning of the poem using the concept of 'The Outsiders'. For example, on the line 'Then leaf subsides to leaf', I could tell that when Johnny killed Bob, all their memories were over and were replaced by reality. All the memories Ponyboy and Johnny relived were just their friendship blooming and meeting its peak. And once a flower blooms, or at least once a story meets it peak, its beauty slowly begins to be old news, or the end of a story. My only wish is that I did both the poem and the book justice. Please Review!_


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